valid points. I have seen evidence that the algorithm can easily lead users into quite an insular bubble—I see the same two sides to it that I always see to social media: it can be a place where people become part of echo chambers and don’t intellectually/emotionally grow; it can be a place for finding friends one shares a common bond with, particularly if one’s real-life environment is isolating for whatever reason (though I don’t think a lot of genuine social interaction is happening on TikTok, it is massively parasocial).
misinformation—also valid. it manifests everywhere online and it’s all the easier for out-of-context moments/tidbits to go viral on TT.
I can’t say I buy into anything about TikTok feeding user data to the Chinese government. believe me, I’m no fan of Jinping’s rule—to that end, however, I think they have a billion other ways of spying on us that are easier for them. the concern surrounding this feels like yet another moral panic that the US government has seized on to distract us from how horrendously bad they are when it comes to modern-tech-privacy legislation in general. are we going to talk about any of the domestic companies that have been proven to spy on their massive customer base, only to get a slap on the wrist…? meanwhile, there’s been virtually no substantive proof of such data collection for TT that I’ve seen, and people are more concerned about it. I don’t get it—and I’m not someone who even uses the app, none of this is an attempt to ~defend my beloved shortform vids~ lmao. it just grinds my gears that our representatives want to act like this app is the worst thing to ever happen to society when they have faaaaar more important matters in this specific realm (internet privacy) to be dealing with, and they seem to be too old/uneducated to do anything effective.
